It’s all a giant conspiracy! (To some readers of climate blogs)

Some of the climate skeptic community has bought into conspiracy theories.

The resistance to the findings of climate scientists can be a bit difficult to understand. Most evidence points to a human role in driving climate change, and a large majority of scientists are convinced by that evidence. Do people think that the scientific community is making things up?

According to a study that has been accepted (but not yet published) by Psychological Science, the answer is yes, at least for some of those who frequent climate blogs. The study finds, as other studies have, that a strong free-market ideology correlates with a lower acceptance of climate change. But it also finds that, among readers of popular climate blogs, a tendency toward conspiracy theories plays a role in fostering doubt of the scientific community.

Because blogs have become a focal point for the discussion of climate change, the authors decided to recruit their study population through them. The authors succeeded in having links to their survey posted by eight blogs that take a generally pro-science slant. Attempts to get it posted at climate skeptics blogs failed (although that's a topic that has since sparked its own controversy, as we'll get to later). Over 1,300 people completed the survey.

A series of questions in it assayed a tendency toward favoring a laissez-faire, free-market economy. Another set handled basic climate literacy, while a third set asked about a variety of conspiracy theories. These ranged from checking for fears of global government to the Moon landings being faked, with questions about Area 51 and 9/11 being an inside job interspersed. The authors figured out which of these questions showed the greatest variation among those filling out the surveys, and used them to create aggregate scores for further analysis.

As expected from other studies, "endorsement of free markets was highly predictive of rejection of climate science." But, more weakly, it also predicted a rejection of other scientific propositions.

But completely independently, so did a tendency toward believing conspiracy theories. Why would this be? "If an overwhelming scientific consensus cannot be accepted as the result of researchers independently converging on the same evidence-based view, then its very existence calls for an alternative explanation," the authors argue, "a function readily fulfilled by the ideation of a complex and secretive conspiracy among researchers." And, since conspiracy theories tend to be equally appealing to those who subscribe to them, that means rejection of climate change groups with all sorts of oddities—faked Moon landings, the belief that the FBI killed Martin Luther King, Jr., and so forth.

Both a laissez-faire attitude and conspiracy tendencies separately predicted the rejection of a variety of other scientific findings, like the fact that HIV causes AIDS, or smoking causes cancer.

It's important to note (as the authors themselves do) that this is not a general cross-section of society. These people read climate blogs and, based on their participation in this study, are willing to share their thoughts on this and other matters.

We also talked to Yale's Dan Kahan, who studies how culture influences our willingness to accept scientific information. He emphasized that the study looked at the impact of two different things: tendencies toward thinking in conspiratorial terms, and a cultural identity that included favoring free markets. As far as the latter group, the results were consistent with previous research, which showed the importance of their cultural leanings. "Members of the public who are culturally predisposed to be doubtful about climate change are just as science literate as ones who are culturally predisposed to accept evidence of climate change," Kahan said.

But cultural biases don't make these individuals as unreliable as conspiracy theorists. "Neither cultural subpopulation is perfectly well-informed, obviously, but I suspect each is a much more reliable source of information than people who dispute whether human beings walked on the Moon," Kahan told Ars.

What to make of the fact that, in this survey, the free-market fans were a bit more prone to doubt other well-established scientific findings? The simplest explanation is that the population of blog-readers isn't completely representative of the larger cultural group, which Kahan and others have found are scientifically literate.

If the study's conclusions suggested that the climate-blog-frequenting community might be a bit loose in its thinking, said community did not take it well. The people who run various self-labelled skeptic sites talked among themselves, and nobody could recall being invited to participate by hosting a link to the survey. This quickly fostered its own conspiracy theory: no invitations had been sent. Freedom of Information Act requests were supposedly filed, and questions of whether fraud might be involved were mooted.

The lead author in question, Stephan Lewandowsky of the University of Western Australia, had to wait while his University's Human Research Ethics Committee determined whether it was appropriate for him to release the names of the people he contacted (while he was waiting, one of the recipients of the original invitation e-mail located it). The University has since given him the go ahead, and Lewandowsky has now identified the remaining four, indicating that at least two of them had replied to the initial invitation.

Lewandowsky doesn't assume malice on the part of the people who couldn't remember or find their invitations—he ascribes it to human error—though he's asked for an apology from those who made what appear to be unfounded accusations against him.

Those who believe in a " laissez-faire, free-market economy" are probably more likely to be distrustful of any type of government which could be seen as "conspiracy" depending on how the questions were asked. There is a strong link between the UN and US governments and the proselytizing of climate change: panels, funding, CAFE standards, gas and energy prices, taxes, etc. Therefore, anti-government intervention people would naturally be skeptics of climate change.

Out of 1100 total responses (on non-skeptic blogs, by the way), there were ten "conspiracy" responses.

Yes, you read that right. Ten. Less than one percent.

Out of those ten, three identified as skeptics, four as pro-AGW, and three as neither. And at least a few of the "conspiracist" responses were faked. Some of the blog posters have admitted to faking responses to make skeptics look bad, so there's more than a fair chance that NONE of the "conspiracy skeptics" existed at all.

The whole study was flawed to start with. No controls to handle multiple submissions from single respondents. The author started commenting on the results while the study was still going on (that alone is enough to invalidate the whole thing). There were also different versions of the survey, sent to different blogs - the skeptic blogs got one set, the pro-AGW blogs got another.

It's a great example of "how to make a biased study," though.

The author is a loud and proud pro-AGW fan, who has made many statements about how he doesn't like AGW skeptics.

Lewandowsky, by the way, contacted the pro-AGW blogs, while an assistant sent inquiries to the skeptic blogs. When the skeptic blog owners said they were never contacted by Lewandowsky, they were telling the truth. A couple ignored the assistant's emails (basically "who is this nobody?"), and at least one wrote back after looking at the inquiry and responses, saying that he thought the whole study was fatally flawed and biased.

Interesting information can be found within the follow-up blog post by Lewandowksy:

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I am pleased to report that I received advice from executives of the University of Western Australia earlier today, that no legal or privacy issues or matters of research ethics prevent publication of the names of those bloggers.So here they are:

Dr Roger Pielke Jr (he replied to the initial contact)

Mr Marc Morano (of Climatedepot; he replied to the initial contact)

Dr Roy Spencer (no reply)

Mr Robert Ferguson (of the Science and Public Policy Institute, no reply)

It will be noted that all 4 have publically stated during the last few days/weeks that they were not contacted.

Also, this bit especially caught my eye.

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Mr McIntyre expended time to locate and then publicize the name of the person within my university to whom complaints about my research should be addressed; time that we now know would have been better spent searching his inbox.

Which is ironic because that means people who do believe in the scientific community's findings on Global Warming by extension don't (by large) subscribe to free-market philosophies and are often the ones who ignore scientific and economic research into what sorts of economies produce higher standards of living, wealth, etc.

"Members of the public who are culturally predisposed to be doubtful about climate change are just as science literate as ones who are culturally predisposed to accept evidence of climate change," Kahan said.

Say it ain't so!

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endorsement of free markets was highly predictive of rejection of climate science

This line is part of the problem, while a majority acknowledge a human component, the extent and implications of the human component is debated heavily. I'm skeptical of the dire predictions proffered by some, but that doesn't mean I reject climate science.

So what does it mean to reject climate science? Are there people who don't believe the climate changes? Are we talking about people who believe that human's don't influence climate at all? People who believe human impact is minimal? Without using specific language it just sounds like name-calling (denier! alarmist!).

Just wanted to mention that not everyone who is suspicious of the events of 9/11/2001 are wack-job conspiracy nuts. In fact, seeing how today is 9/11, I'd like to remind folks that not everyone is convinced that the official story is accurate, and to desire a more thorough investigation of the worst terrorist attack in our nation's history is in my opinion rather more patriotic than crazy.

Which is ironic because that means people who do believe in the scientific community's findings on Global Warming by extension don't (by large) subscribe to free-market philosophies and are often the ones who ignore scientific and economic research into what sorts of economies produce higher standards of living, wealth, etc.

Logic, my dear boy!

People who deny AGW tend to be free-marketers <> People who accept AGW are not free-marketers

But you conspiracy-minded, free-market types aren't too good at that stuff, eh?

Just wanted to mention that not everyone who is suspicious of the events of 9/11/2001 are wack-job conspiracy nuts. In fact, seeing how today is 9/11, I'd like to remind folks that not everyone is convinced that the official story is accurate, and to desire a more thorough investigation of the worst terrorist attack in our nation's history is in my opinion rather more patriotic than crazy.

Asking for more information is fine. Asking for more information and insinuating conspiracy, without any evidence of it, is not fine. Asking for more information and declaring conspiracy, because they won't give the info you want, is called being a kook.

Which is ironic because that means people who do believe in the scientific community's findings on Global Warming by extension don't (by large) subscribe to free-market philosophies and are often the ones who ignore scientific and economic research into what sorts of economies produce higher standards of living, wealth, etc.

And your basis for saying that is what? Citation? You'll note that the US is #4 on the HDI, but #23 when inequality is taken into account... below more socialized countries such as Norway and the Netherlands.

Is there any evidence to suggest this? Thinking of this mathematically, the more people involved in the conspiracy, the less likely it is to be true. Based off of the collected probability that everyone keeps the secret.

Just wanted to mention that not everyone who is suspicious of the events of 9/11/2001 are wack-job conspiracy nuts. In fact, seeing how today is 9/11, I'd like to remind folks that not everyone is convinced that the official story is accurate, and to desire a more thorough investigation of the worst terrorist attack in our nation's history is in my opinion rather more patriotic than crazy.

Problem is that as soon as anyone questions the official story, they are labeled a conspiracy theorist.Does not bode well for independent thought.

Which is ironic because that means people who do believe in the scientific community's findings on Global Warming by extension don't (by large) subscribe to free-market philosophies and are often the ones who ignore scientific and economic research into what sorts of economies produce higher standards of living, wealth, etc.

And your basis for saying that is what? Citation? You'll note that the US is #4 on the HDI, but #23 when inequality is taken into account... below more socialized countries such as Norway and the Netherlands.

We also know from history that free markets don't work, and will often lead to industry monopolies. Not sure what scientific research is being talked about here

I seriously doubt this association has anything to do with actual philosophical points on economics and more with sociological trends in the United States since the 1960's. In a lot of people's minds Global warming=environmentalists=tree huggers=hippies. Therefore Global warming=tree hugging hippies, and who is gonna put anything important in their hands?

Compare this with the opposition to Darwinism in the early 20th century in the United States. People like William Jennings Bryan were progressives and populists, concerned with the common man, and here was a theory that threatened to legitimize the oppression of the weak by the strong, social darwinism, eugenics, etc.

The perception of scientific claims is always wrapped up in politics, not a particular side of politics, because we are social animals and guide our societies using politics.

The idea that an unregulated free market is the best solution to all problems is purely ideological, and resistant to any evidence to the contrary (say, high barriers to entry, natural monopolies, or the deleterious effects of widescale deregulation), so it makes sense that these people do not live an evidence-based life, and would widely reject other evidence-based results that conflict with their ideology.

Cognitive dissonance is a hell of a drug.

Not to say that going full-socialist is the right solution of course. But based on the results we see in developed economic powers, it would seem to be that a well-regulated capitalist system has maximized prosperity and happiness, not a minimally-regulated one.

You conveniently overlook the fact that Lewandowsky didn't contact any skeptical blogs, but had an assistant to it, with no reference to Lewandowsky. Would you click on a link in an email from a nobody sent to you? No.

You also conveniently overlook the fact that because no skeptical blogs participated, almost all of the replies came from anti-skeptics. (Not non-skeptics, but rather those who frequent blogs that are vociferously anti-skeptic.) Most if not all of the "skeptics" replies were probably faked by anti-skeptics. Even anti-skeptical sites have noted surveys -- which were not excluded from the results -- that were so over-the-top that they were obvious fakes.

In the interest of complete honesty, you should also report that Lewandowsky has praised Gleick, who masqueraded as a board member of a competing organization, then forged a document from them and included it along with the real documents he obtained via his fraud. Yeah, Lewandowsky is a guy who believes it's fine to lie and forge in service to the Cause.

Roger Pielke Jr's blog is not a skeptical blog so the good professor was misinformed and misled on that account. Also Skeptical Science's Tom Curtis has enumerated on several problems with the paper suggeting it be revised or not published until problems are resolved. At the very least this paper has brought several skeptics and non-skeptics together in agreement that at least some of this paper has veered off into the science of Bovine Scatology.

Just wanted to mention that not everyone who is suspicious of the events of 9/11/2001 are wack-job conspiracy nuts. In fact, seeing how today is 9/11, I'd like to remind folks that not everyone is convinced that the official story is accurate, and to desire a more thorough investigation of the worst terrorist attack in our nation's history is in my opinion rather more patriotic than crazy.

Problem is that as soon as anyone questions the official story, they are labeled a conspiracy theorist.Does not bode well for independent thought.

And that is exactly what I find so insulting.

crhilton wrote:

Asking for more information is fine. Asking for more information and insinuating conspiracy, without any evidence of it, is not fine. Asking for more information and declaring conspiracy, because they won't give the info you want, is called being a kook.

And what if it's obvious that some of the evidence had been suppressed and/or misinterpreted? If it were shown that additional perpetrators were involved, would you not be interested in seeing them brought to justice? Or is that just too kooky?

Just wanted to mention that not everyone who is suspicious of the events of 9/11/2001 are wack-job conspiracy nuts. In fact, seeing how today is 9/11, I'd like to remind folks that not everyone is convinced that the official story is accurate, and to desire a more thorough investigation of the worst terrorist attack in our nation's history is in my opinion rather more patriotic than crazy.

Problem is that as soon as anyone questions the official story, they are labeled a conspiracy theorist.Does not bode well for independent thought.

Oh, please. People are labeled conspiracy theorists when they make ridiculous and baseless assumptions. They use poor logic and reasoning in using their "facts" to support whatever conclusion they want.

People who claim that the towers fell because of controlled demolitions or whatever, or that a missile and not a plane that crashed into the Pentagon, etc., fall into this category.

They (the scientists/meteorologists) aren't exactly winning people over with their predictions. Does anyone remember the predictions for future hurricanes after Katrina? Because there were three different ones.

More hurricanes, less powerfulLess hurricanes, more powerfulMore hurricanes, more powerful

Mr McIntyre expended time to locate and then publicize the name of the person within my university to whom complaints about my research should be addressed; time that we now know would have been better spent searching his inbox.

Yep, that's what we call "modus operandi"

No, that's what we call "pointing out to the university that one of their researchers has conducted a dishonest survey to push a political agenda." The time spent searching the inbox turned up an email from Lewandowsky's non-famous research assistant - that was ignored. McIntyre gets hundreds of emails a day, many from crank AGW fans. Would you even read such an email? And would you associate it with a study performed by another person entirely?

wait did this article just state that free-market economy believers oppose global warming claims and those who lean towards socialism support it? Isn't that just stating the current political divide in the US? How is this not obvious?

You conveniently overlook the fact that Lewandowsky didn't contact any skeptical blogs, but had an assistant to it, with no reference to Lewandowsky. Would you click on a link in an email from a nobody sent to you? No.

That ... that sounds like a remarkably arrogant policy. Why should it matter "who" is contacting you about linking to a survey? Are they holding out for only the best researchers to survey their commentators? What kind of self-important know-it-all would take this attitude?

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You also conveniently overlook the fact that because no skeptical blogs participated, almost all of the replies came from anti-skeptics. (Not non-skeptics, but rather those who frequent blogs that are vociferously anti-skeptic.) Most if not all of the "skeptics" replies were probably faked by anti-skeptics. Even anti-skeptical sites have noted surveys -- which were not excluded from the results -- that were so over-the-top that they were obvious fakes.

The most vocal criticism I've seen on this issue came from Tom Curtis, who clarified that Lewandowsky had done all the appropriate corrections for this kind of thing and reached the same overall conclusion. He does disagree with the specific inferences of the paper, but mostly due to the small sample size. In his mind it doesn't affect the free-market link at all (which he points out is already well-established).

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In the interest of complete honesty, you should also [participate in character assassination on par with linking Obama and Bill Ayers]

Just wanted to mention that not everyone who is suspicious of the events of 9/11/2001 are wack-job conspiracy nuts. In fact, seeing how today is 9/11, I'd like to remind folks that not everyone is convinced that the official story is accurate, and to desire a more thorough investigation of the worst terrorist attack in our nation's history is in my opinion rather more patriotic than crazy.

Problem is that as soon as anyone questions the official story, they are labeled a conspiracy theorist.Does not bode well for independent thought.

I suppose you're right about that, in principle. But I think that would happen less often in the case of 9/11 if the 'truthers' would propound less ridiculous theories about what actually happened (a few little tiny poofs out of a few windows while the entire building is collapsing is supposed to prove that there were bombs? And why would they bother with bombs in addition to hitting the buildings with a plane anyway? And the pentagon was hit by a missile, which they claimed was an airliner? They were already hijacking planes and flying them into all the other buildings they wanted to destroy, so why wouldn't they do the same at the pentagon? Didn't they realize that in broad daylight a few people might notice that it was a tiny missile and not a huge fucking airplane? etc...). I realize different people in the truther movement believe different things, but if there are a few out there who are reasonable, they're being done a disservice by the majority. It's just hard for us on the outside to take it seriously, because 90% of what we hear from them is completely ridiculous. That's why we call them conspiracy theorists.